Tamales for toys; CSUEB greek organization gives back to Hayward kids

For the past three years, the Tau Chapter of Gamma Zeta Alpha Fraternity, Inc. at Cal State East Bay held a tamales sale during the month of December as a way to both celebrate Mexican culture and to raise money for the Tau's annual toy drive. We then used the profits from our tamales sale to purchase holiday gifts for needy Hayward children.

Our first year, we bought and delivered 50 toys to children hospitalized in a Hayward hospital over the holidays. In 2011, we purchased over 100 toys to give to children living in an underprivileged Hayward neighborhood. This year we purchased over 300 toys and, on Dec. 20, 2012, Tau members played the role of Santa’s elves and delivered these toys to the children of Eldridge Elementary School in Hayward. We traveled from classroom to classroom handing out toys. It was joy for all participants to see the children's faces light up with joy.

Next year, we challenge the CSUEB community to buy more tamales so that we may bring the joy of the holidays to even more local children.

California State University, East Bay is the San Francisco East Bay Area's high-access public university of choice. CSUEB serves the region with campuses in Hayward and Concord, a professional development center in Oakland,
and an innovative online campus. With an enrollment of more than 14,000, the University offers a nationally
recognized freshman year experience, award-winning curriculum, personalized instruction, and expert faculty.
Students choose from among more than 100 professionally focused fields of study for which the University confers
bachelor's and master's degrees, as well as an Ed.D. in education. Named a "Best in the West" college, as well as a
Best Business School, by the influential Princeton Review, Cal State East Bay is among the region's foremost
producers of teachers, business professionals and entrepreneurs, public administrators, health professionals,
literary and performing artists, and science and math graduates.